'Yes, of course,' agreed Miss Mildmay. 'I cannot promise you that you will find everything here the same as at your poor grandmother's. You always called her your grandmother, I suppose,' she went on, turning to Jacinth, 'though she was not really any blood relation.'

The girl's lip quivered, but she controlled herself. 'We--we never thought about that,' she said. 'And then, of course, she was Uncle Manny's own mother, and we are so very fond of him.'

'Ah! he seems a nice young fellow, but so very young, and Mrs Denison was quite elderly. But she was more than middle-aged when she married, of course,' said Miss Mildmay.

There was a slight, almost indescribable tone of condescension or disparagement in her voice, the reason of which I will explain. Both the girls were conscious of it, but it affected them in different ways.